article · Sustainability
An econometric evaluation of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa spanning 1996 to 2020 examines how renewable energy usage, institutional quality, and economic expansion influence consumption-based carbon dioxide emissions. Long-run co-movement exists among these variables, confirming a stable equilibrium over time. Across all evaluated quantiles, growth in gross domestic product demonstrates a positive and statistically significant relationship with emissions, indicating that production expansion drives environmental degradation in these economies. In contrast, renewable energy consumption and robust institutional quality show negative, statistically significant impacts on emissions, reflecting their capacity to mitigate environmental deterioration. These conclusions remain robust across several alternative estimation techniques, underscoring that accelerating renewable power adoption and reinforcing governance frameworks are vital mechanisms for curbing carbon emissions during ongoing economic growth.
Balancing economic development with climate targets requires clear evidence on what drives consumption-related emissions. These findings demonstrate that standard economic expansion intensifies environmental degradation across major emerging markets. However, the negative impact can be mitigated by combining clean energy adoption with strong governance frameworks, providing empirical guidance for international sustainability targets.
The abstract focuses exclusively on macroeconomic econometric analysis and does not indicate an application pathway.
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The motivation for this research stems from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), specifically SDGs 7, 11, 12, and 13, which focus on the mitigation of climate change and sustainable economic development. This study examined the impact of renewable energy use, institutional quality, and production expansion on consumption-based carbon dioxide (CCO2) emissions in BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) from 1996 to 2020. To achieve this, we applied advanced econometric techniques, including second-generation cointegration and unit root tests, along with the novel panel method of moments quantile regression (MMQR). The Westerlund cointegration test confirmed the presence of a long-run co-movement among renewable energy usage, economic growth, institutional quality, and environmental quality, suggesting a stable equilibrium relationship between these variables. The results from MMQR reveal that GDP has a positive and statistically significant effect on CCO2 emissions across all quantiles, indicating that economic expansion contributes to environmental degradation. In contrast, renewable energy consumption and institutional quality show negative and significant impacts on CCO2 emissions, indicating their mitigating effect on environmental deterioration. As a robustness check, the findings from fixed-effect OLS (FE-OLS), generalized method of moments (GMM), and common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG) estimations broadly confirm the results of MMQR. These findings underscore the importance of renewable energy consumption and strong institutional frameworks in promoting environmental sustainability.
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DOI: 10.3390/su17020704
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